I Am a Cancer Survivor - Forum & Chat Board | Alternative Cancer Treatments

Hello Everyone,

My mother was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and they cannot find the host.  We have been working on detoxing her and mega boosting her immune system.  We are against the normal chemo treatments and are looking for alternative treatments.  They say it's incurable, but we don't believe that.  If all the chemo does is prolonge her life and does not cure after it have mestasticized, what quality of life could she have on high dose chemo?  We are very interested in Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT) and were wondering if anyone has had experience or knows anyone who has experience with this treatment.  Please help us understand if there is possibility that this could help.  There is very little clinical research out there on this, but it sounds great.  Thanks!!!!

Fighter4

 

 

I went to http://kpfa.org/  and did a search on cancer.  Very helpful and surprising and of course since KPFA invented community supported non-profit radio sixty years ago they are not connected to the deleterious for profit system, mainstream Pharma, they can reveal the sad truth of our health industry. 
 
Your Own Health and Fitness: Past Shows - May, 2006



Tanya Harter Pierce, author of Outsmart Your Cancer discusses the wide variety of successful alternatives to conventional cancer treatments. ...

www.kpfa.org/archives/index. php?show=29&month=05&year=2006




 
http://www.outsmartyourcancer.com/ discusses the wide variety of successful alternatives to conventional cancer treatments...

 

 

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This is some recent good news:
 
Rapamycin prevents cells from multiplying
 
http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/localnews/ci_13023893?source=rss
By Vanessa McMains

McClatchy Newspapers
Posted: 08/08/2009 08:49:13 PM PDT
Updated: 08/08/2009 08:49:46 PM PDT

 

 

 

 

CHICAGO — When Albina Duggan of Bourbonnais, Ill., was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, it had spread from her liver to her spine and lymph nodes.

"(The doctor) told me I had three years — if lucky, five — to live," she said. Having endured four surgeries and intensive radiation treatment, Duggan enrolled in clinical trials as a last resort.
Five years later, the 41-year-old mother of four has defied expectations: Her tumors have shrunk by half and doctors no longer are setting limits on her life expectancy.
Duggan attributes her new hope to an unusual cancer treatment being tested at the University of Chicago — the drug rapamycin, supplemented by grapefruit juice.
Unlike most beverages, grapefruit juice contains a chemical that boosts the potency of many drugs in the body.
To avoid a dangerously high dose of medication, patients are often advised to not wash down pills with grapefruit juice.
University of Chicago cancer researcher Dr. Ezra Cohen wondered if that quality could be used for good — if drinking the juice could boost the effectiveness of cancer drugs.
For example, rapamycin and related drugs normally must be taken daily to be effective against cancer. Taking it once a week would lower the cost and decrease adverse side effects, including suppression of the immune system and diarrhea.
This spring, at the American Association for Cancer Research's 100th annual meeting
in Denver, Cohen presented early results finding that drug levels in patients taking rapamycin once a week and drinking 8 ounces of grapefruit juice every day were similar to the levels that would be expected from taking the drug daily without juice.
 
Rapamycin prevents cells from multiplying, which is important for keeping cancer growth in check. But because an enzyme in the intestine breaks down the drug, only a fraction of the rapamycin a patient swallows gets into the system, Cohen said.
Grapefruit juice contains chemicals that block this enzyme, which he said "normally protects us from other toxic chemicals and metabolizes them to harmless byproducts."
However, not just any grapefruit juice will work. The grocery-store grapefruit juice Cohen initially used did not cause an increase of the rapamycin levels in the blood. "We were scratching our heads trying to figure out what was wrong," he said.
By a stroke of luck the Florida Department of Citrus saw a report about Cohen's work on television.
The department contacted Cohen and told him the key chemicals in grapefruit juice have a short shelf-life and can break down during the time it takes to process and sell the juice.
The citrus department sent Cohen a more potent juice that had been freshly frozen, which turned out to be effective for raising drug levels in the blood.
 

Grapefruit Juice May Fight Cancer
Researchers mix drink with drugs to increase potency
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2009/04/grapefruit_cancer.html
 
April 23, 2009

For more than 20 years, pharmacists have pasted "DO NOT TAKE WITH GRAPEFRUIT JUICE" warnings on various pill bottles because it can interfere with the enzymes that break down and eliminate certain drugs. This interference has the effect of making the drugs more potent.

Now, scientists believe they can harness grapefruit juice's drug-alerting properties to make cancer fighting drugs more powerful as they move through the body. In a small, early clinical trial, researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Center have found that combining eight ounces of grapefruit juice with the drug rapamycin can increase drug levels, allowing lower doses of the drug to be given. They also showed that the combination can be effective in treating various types of cancer.

"Grapefruit juice can increase blood levels of certain drugs three to five times," said study director Ezra Cohen, MD, a cancer specialist at the University of Chicago Medical Center. "This has always been considered a hazard. We wanted to see if, and how much, it could amplify the availability, and perhaps the efficacy of rapamycin, a drug with promise for cancer treatment."
 
This trial was designed to test "whether we could use this to boost rapamycin's bioavailability to the patient's advantage, to determine how much the juice altered drug levels, and to assess its impact on anti-cancer activity and side effects," he said.
The study followed 28 patients with advanced solid tumors, for which there is no effective treatment. The dose of the drug increased with each group of five patients, from 15 milligrams up to 35. Patients took the drug by mouth, as a liquid, once a week.
Beginning in week two, they washed it down with a glass of grapefruit juice, taken immediately after the rapamycin and then once a day for the rest of the week.
Twenty-five participants remained in the study long enough to be evaluated. Seven of those 25 had stable disease, with little or no tumor growth. One patient had a partial response, with the tumor shrinking by about 30 percent. That patient is still doing well more than a year after beginning the trial.
"My first cancer doctor gave me five years to live," said that patient, Albina Duggan of Bourbonnais, IL. "That time runs out next July."
Duggan, mother of four, has a rare cancer, an epitheliod hemangioendothelioma that originated in the liver and subsequently spread to two vertebrae in the neck and to the lymph nodes. She had surgery and radiation therapy and was evaluated for a liver transplant, but evidence of cancer beyond the liver made her ineligible for a transplant. She "shopped around" for other therapies and was able to keep the disease in check for a year with sorafenib, a drug approved for kidney and liver cancers.
After a year of stable disease, however, her tumor began growing again and she had to look for an alternative therapy. Her doctors at the University of Chicago offered three clinical trials. The most appealing to her was the rapamycin plus grapefruit juice study. She took her first dose March 11, 2008, and is still on the drug-juice combination.
"My tumor is smaller and it's no longer growing. I feel fine. I can do whatever I like and I have no real side effects," she said. "What's not to like?"
Trial subjects do not like the taste of rapamycin. "It's not pleasant," Duggan admitted. She has also tired of grapefruit juice.
Many patients in the study did report side effects. More than half experienced elevated blood sugar levels, diarrhea, low white blood cell counts or fatigue.
Rapamycin, also known as sirolimus, was originally developed to suppress the immune system , preventing rejection in patients receiving a transplanted kidney. Cancer specialists became interested in the drug when they learned that it disrupted a biochemical pathway involved in the development of the new blood vessels that tumors need to grow. But the drug is expensive and poorly absorbed. Less than 15 percent of rapamycin is absorbed when taken by mouth.
This study showed that substances known a furanocoumarins, plentiful in some forms of grapefruit juice, can decrease the breakdown of rapamycin. This makes the drug reach higher levels in the bloodstream, two to four times the levels seen without a juice boost, and thus increases the amount of the drug that reaches its targets.
"That means more of the drug hits the target, so we need less of the drug," said Cohen.
Many of the newer cancer medications, precisely focused on specific targets, are now taken as pills rather than intravenously. Some of these drugs, including rapamycin, can cost thousands of dollars a month. Hence, "this is an opportunity for real savings," Cohen said. "A daily glass of juice could lower the cost by 50 percent."




Read more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2009/04/grapefruit_cancer.html#ixzz0NfY62DUQ

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Read more: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2009/04/grapefruit_cancer.html#ixzz0NfXuzU1k

 
 

Grapefruit juice may contain cancer-fighting compounds

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Science-Nutrition/Grapefruit-juice-may-contain-cancer-fighting-compounds

01-Sep-2004

Related topics: Science & Nutrition

Citrus fruits like oranges and grapefruits are known to be a rich source of vitamin C but new evidence suggests they also contain compounds that fight cancer.


Researchers at Texas A&M University reported this week that freeze-dried grapefruit pulp, similar to whole grapefruit, reduced the incidence of early colon cancer lesions in an animal model of the disease.
Meanwhile a researcher at Kanazawa Medical University in Japan showed that nobiletin, a compound found in tangerines, has also demonstrated possible action against colon cancer.
 
Cancer of the colon or rectum is the second deadliest form of cancer after lung cancer but is also considered one of the most preventable types of cancer, as there are several dietary factors that appear to play a protective role against the disease.
 
In another trial, presented yesterday at the symposium on health benefits of citrus fruits, taking place during the American Chemical Society's national meeting this week, a team from the University of Hawaii reported that drinking grapefruit juice may help reduce the risk of cancer in smokers.
 
In a controlled study involving 49 smokers, the researchers found that those drinking three 6-ounce glasses of grapefruit juice a day reduced the activity of a liver enzyme called CYP1A2 that is thought to activate cancer-causing chemicals found in tobacco smoke.
 
The meeting underlines the nutraceutical potential of the fruit at a time when sales are being hit by the current trend for low-carb diets as well as warnings about the interaction between grapefruit and prescription drugs.
 
 
Grapefruit are a key component of the once fashionable 'grapefruit diet', now pushed to the sidelines by the low-carb mania. But a recent trial, reported earlier this year and presented at the meeting yesterday, suggests that grapefruit may indeed stop weight gain by lowering insulin levels.
 
Meanwhile the fruit's effects on drugs could be turned into a benefit for the pharmaceutical industry. Scientists at Texas A&M Citrus Center have identified three compounds belonging to a class called furocoumarins that are responsible for inhibiting a key enzyme, CYP3A4, that metabolizes and regulates certain drugs involved in the grapefruit-drug interaction.
 
The researchers hope that these enzyme-blockers can eventually be developed into a 'super-pill' or specialty grapefruit juice that can be co-administered with prescription drugs to increase their bioavailability, thus reducing dose and cost.
 
Roughly two-thirds of the world's grapefruit and grapefruit juice hail from Florida.
 
<<<>>>>
 
from http://alternativecancer.us/
 
If you are seriously considering alternative cancer threatments, you must take your time. There is a lot of information you must know, mistakes you must avoid. There are a number of good treatments. But, even the best alternative cancer treatment only works on a minority of people who use it correctly. Don't take chances. Learn how to select treatments based on the unique body chemistry of the patient.
 
My hope is your mother will be happy healthy and whole.
 


 


















Metta Practice:
 
May I have joy.
May I have wisdom.
May I have ease of well being.
May I have physical happiness.
May I know the root of happiness.
May eternal grace, love, mindfulness, and rhythm support and strengthen me.
In a healthy and positive way I consciously accept all my power.
I practice my goals in an easy and relaxed manner.
I do good with the qualities I've been born with.
I renounce the need for revenge, bitterness, anger, or rage.
I am guided, guarded and protected from dissonance and arhythmia.

All life comes to me from a place of ease, joy and glory.

And so it is.